Throughout Partner Summit came mentions from the stage -- Cisco's Rob Lloyd, EVP, worldwide operations, highlighted Huawei among three specific competitors during his closing keynote -- and also behind closed doors. During their meetings, partners told CRN, Cisco executives asked repeatedly about Huawei, including how often and how frequently Huawei's U.S. channel executives have been contacting partners and what products they see coming.

"These were a lot of the same questions Cisco was asking us about HP in 2009 and 2010," one partner told CRN during the show.